there aren’t enough hyphens for all that’s wrong with you

One of the rare non-LJ postings… I was in the middle of writing about gaming and ended up going off on a rant about one of the players, and then the spouse of the host and realized that it really deserved an alternate entry. I don’t think that the posts on urbanbohemian.com are especially protected, in fact they are more public than some of the posts on LiveJournal, but I think people get into habits and the ease of all one’s friends postings in one screen is too alluring.

Still, gaming.. Michael.. He plays every character (so I’m told) as himself, is much more concerned with knowing what’s on everyone’s sheet (so he can have a higher stat on his) than roleplaying, and … well as an example, Josh rolled up a new character (the GM has suggested that we have alts to allow a larger, more well-rounded pool of PCs) that’s a telepath. We’re playing in near modern day (1980’s) where magic and general weirdness isn’t known to the public. Upon Michael’s character’s first encounter with Josh, he boldly asks, repeatedly, “Are you a telepath?!” Which is kinda the equivalent, in this type of fiction, of asking, “Are you a homosexual?!” – our characters are not initially rolled up being out of the “supernatural” closet. Michael refuses to roll up an alt because all he can think about is getting his magic user more spells instead of contributing to the game at-large. So it was a very trying day in RPG land.

On the bright side, however, I did feel much more comfortable at Rob’s place, though not completely comfortable or welcome. His partner’s passive-aggressive ways are becoming difficult to ignore because since it has been established, though not publicly, that he doesn’t like me, I guess I’m coming around to the realization that I don’t need to be much more than the bare minimum of polite in return. Usually, its little things, whenever we’re playing games that he adamantly refuses to take part in, he will make his presence known. As if to say, “I’m not joining you, but don’t forget I’m here.” The best two so far though are his sharpening knives in the kitchen or his wanting to watch television in the living room, either time when we’re in the dining room, sometimes making enough noise to be heard in the living room, possibly disturbing him. The bathrobe comment came from the fact that nearly everytime we have a morning/early afternoon gaming session at their place, he’s walking around in his bathrobe. And to me that just says, I knew you were coming, I just didn’t really care to put on clothes since you’re not here to see me.

In the past people have suggested that perhaps he has developmental disorders, and I have defended him without giving it a second thought, but now I’m not so sure. One friend believes he has an insecurity complex combined with narcissism. That well may be, but that’s his issue to work out through therapy, not something for the rest of us to tread lightly around and cope with, one of my beefs with the psychiatry/psychology profession.

I was initially concerned that my friendship with Rob would completely disintegrate, but it hasn’t, and I’ve been taking steps to improve upon it, but they are slow steps, and true to Conservation, that energy has been going elsewhere and other friendship bonds have gotten stronger, which is a good thing. And I know that some of these issues stem from me, but I’m working on that, I feel like I can tolerate a lot from people, but disrespect or outwardly negative actions (passive-aggressiveness, once recognized, is no longer passive) from others that might consider themselves my friends or acquaintances is not to be taken lightly.